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The Real Problem with Solyndra

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Executives from the bankrupt solar-energy company Solyndra recently invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, declining to testify to avoid self-incrimination. “On advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer any questions,” said CEO Brian Harrison and CFO Bill Stover at the Subcommittee hearing “Solyndra and The DOE Loan Guarantee Program.” Solyndra, based in Fremont, California, filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on September 6, 2011, shut down all production operations, and laid off its 1,100 employees. At issue is the company’s default on a federally guaranteed loan of $535 million. Solyndra was the first renewable-energy company to receive a loan guarantee under a provision to encourage “green energy” in Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” It was not the beginning of the government’s effort to encourage “green energy,” and neither was it the beginning of ...

Social Security Is Not a Ponzi Scheme

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It is good to see that the Republican presidential candidates are battling it out over the nature of the Social Security system. It is something that few politicians have been willing to talk about, lest they antagonize the largest class of voters in the country — senior citizens. At the Republican candidate debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on September 7, Rick Perry, the governor or Texas, sparred with Massachusetts’s former governor Mitt Romney over the issue. Romney took issue with Perry’s calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” in his book Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington. Perry didn’t back down and added that Social Security was a “failure” and a “monstrous lie.” He said the system needed to be changed and that the United States should transition to a system that would work financially. However, he made it clear that “people who are on Social Security today, men and women who are receiving ...

Why Do Republicans Want to Raise Taxes?

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True or false: Barack Obama wants to raise taxes and Republicans in Congress want to cut them. The surprising answer is, False. Although it can usually be said that the president never met a tax hike or spending increase he didn’t like, such is not the case right now. One does not have to be a fan of Obama or his motives to recognize a good deal for the American people and applaud him for proposing it. It seems that the president wants to extend the payroll-tax cut that is set to expire at the end of this year. It hasn’t even been a year since Republicans fought for, and obtained, an extension of the Bush tax cuts for two years. Yet now they are opposing the proposed extension of the payroll-tax cut that was part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts. There are two types of payroll taxes: Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes. Social Security taxes were instituted ...

Rolling Back the Myth of Good Government

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Rollback: Repealing Big Government before the Coming Financial Collapse by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Washington D.C.: Regnery, 2011); 232 pages. The government of the United States has secured the confidence and consent of the American people through myths of its benevolence, provision, innovation, achievements, scientific advances, educational system, and protection. It takes credit for everything good that happens ...

Which Republican Candidate Is More Conservative?

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Although the next presidential election is more than a year away, campaigning has already begun. With a liberal Democratic incumbent in the White House, Republican candidates are loudly touting their conservative credentials. The battles over which candidate is more conservative are heating up. “I have fought against irresponsible spending while Governor Pawlenty was leaving a multi-billion-dollar budget mess in ...

Should Social Security Be Saved?

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Speaking at a conference for a finance trade association in Chicago, former President George W. Bush said that the biggest failure of his administration was not privatizing Social Security. In 2001 the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security was formed. This bipartisan, 16-member commission issued a report that included three reform proposals, all of which allowed workers to voluntarily transfer ...

Managed Trade Is Not Free Trade

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As libertarians have long pointed out, trade agreements like the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) are not free-trade agreements and organizations. Rather, they are managed-trade agreements and organizations that abdicate power to an international body, and in direct violation of the Constitution. As Congressman Ron Paul stated, We don’t need government ...